Thoughts on Money

Risk isn’t a measure of negative consequences. It’s a measure of uncertainty. And the issue with minimizing risk is that while we protect our downside, we prevent ourselves from achieving any sort of meaningful upside. In this way, risk minimization isn’t an insurance policy as much as it is a collar, and the cost of protecting our downside is the... See more

Small Planet Institute co-founder Anna Lappé once said:

“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”

Just because money feels stressful and anxiety-inducing now doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. If you want your money life to feel calm, spacious, and grounded — you can do that.

You get to decide what your relationship with money looks like and turn these money tasks into opportunities to infuse your relationship with money with a sense of... See more

But here’s the key: Money work isn’t about getting rid of our uncomfortable emotions. It’s about learning to respond to them, to work with them, and to learn from them.

And most importantly, to not let them steer you in directions that will make life harder for you.

“conventional budgeting methods rely on restriction, discipline, and perfectionism in a way that doesn’t work for people. They ignore an important truth about money: it’s meant to be spent.”

But consumption smoothing pays homage to an existential reality: Life itself is the ultimate scarce asset. The future is unknowable, and religiously maintaining a double-digit savings rate through the worst squalls of life is not of the utmost importance.